


Ire Starter

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Without a Clue (1988)
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Crack, Gen, Humor, Prompt Fic, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 18:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4358924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reginald Kincaid has an unfortunate tendency.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ire Starter

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #16, **Ablaze:**   
> 

Reginald Kincaid had many good qualities that aided him in his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes.  Despite the fact that the actor was a gambler, womaniser and drunkard when left to his own devices (vices that Dr. Watson wrote into his own avatar in the case-stories), he was good enough at his profession that when he was on-stage, so to speak, he was the epitome of the aristocratic, enigmatic sleuth. His proficiency at memorisation and improvisation was invaluable for times when Watson had to hastily re-write a deduction seconds before a press conference, or cover a blunder (“I’m afraid we were both misled, Watson old man”). His experience in the lowest of music-hall theatres meant he was expert at staying in character despite any obstacle, surprise, or response (“I’ve done Hamlet’s soliloquy while people were throwing beer-bottles and taunting me, Watson – this is nothing”).

However, loth though Watson was to admit it, there was something for which Kincaid had an unfortunate tendency: Inadvertent fire-starting.

If Kincaid came within an arm’s-length of Watson's chemistry table an explosion was sure to follow (Watson always made sure to have buckets of water and sand underneath at all times now, _and_ had written a well-received monograph on burn treatment).

The Orpheum suffered the same unhappy fate of far too many British theaters – and whether it would have burned without Kincaid’s dropping the lantern was debatable.

There was that unfortunate incident at the Dartmoor racetrack (Kincaid had bummed a cigarette from one of the grooms and dropped it whilst lighting it), which became immortalized in more ways than one – not only for the stupid dog that just stood there and did nothing whilst the empty stalls went up and grooms led the panicked beasts away, but also for the fact that before that fire the winning entry had been known by the name Silver _Bolt_.

The man who’d tipped them to the Blond-Headed League suffered a similar fate; Kincaid had leaned over to ask a question of the tow-headed Jabez Wilson when his pipe caught the poor man’s hair alight – turning the pawnbroker into a blazing, shrieking redhead in an instant. (Fortunately he was right by the chemistry table and Watson was able to douse him with the bucket of water.) The French gold was saved, but both men narrowly avoided a lawsuit by the now bald-headed and red-eyed Wilson.

They weren’t all bad. The Orpheum fire did end Moriarty’s career. There was also that grass-fire that smoked out the man who’d been stalking Violet Smith on her bicycle (sadly, nearly suffocating the poor girl with smoke too, but all’s well that ends well).

The worst one though…

As they fled the room in which they had planned to lie in wait for Colonel Moran (“Watson, I thought those two stones were part of a rock fountain! Who leaves a rifle flint and iron ore in a puddle of kerosene?” his partner shouted behind him), Watson was already rearranging the facts to fit The Adventure of the Thankfully-Empty House.

That was the worst incident, because of the two notes they received afterward.

One: A cock-a-doodle of victory from Inspector Lestrade. As it turned out that night, the Colonel had seen the house go up in flames, had run the other way and went smack into Lestrade’s squad, where he was promptly taken into custody and provided a handsome feather for Scotland Yard’s cap.

Two: A note on heavy cream paper, lavishly engraved, that struck Watson cold with terror.

“Oooh, lovely!” Kincaid said, reading over Watson's shoulder. “Her Majesty has invited us to tea in Buckingham Palace!”


End file.
